(Image: Harpreet Singh/Unsplash)Researchers in London claim their new AI-powered retinal analysis tool can predict a person’s risk of heart disease in under 60 seconds. The system, called QUARTZ (for QUantitative Analysis of Retinal vessels Topology and siZe), uses retinal vasculature imaging and known individual risk factors to determine a person’s likelihood of developing heart disease. The retina serves as a “non-invasive window” into a person’s circulatory system via the veins and arteries at the back of the eye. Doctors have long been able to assess a person’s risk of high blood pressure, diabetes, and other diseases by manually looking at the retina.
(Photo: NASA/SDO/AIA/Goddard Space Flight Center)China has successfully launched its first dedicated orbital solar telescope. The project is officially known as ASO-S, the Advanced Space-based Solar Observatory. Once fully operational, it will monitor space weather to teach us about solar physics and protect “valuable assets in space.” ASO-S also goes by Kuafu-1, after a giant in Chinese mythology who chased the Sun, wishing to catch and tame it. The satellite will observe from a sun-synchronous orbit 720 km above Earth’s surface. As part of its 11-year solar cycle, the Sun produces phenomena like sunspots, solar flares, and coronal mass ejections (CMEs).
Maybe you want to think again about picking up the — the European Parliament today voted to require USB-C as the “common port” for consumer electronics. That means if wants to continue selling iPhones in the European Union in 2024, it’ll have to leave the Lightning port behind. This is not just about the iPhone, but Apple’s ubiquitous smartphone is probably the most prominent holdout. The new EU directive will cover a wide range of devices beyond smartphones like tablets, cameras, and in 2026, laptops. The vote was heavily lopsided in favor of the change, with 602 votes in favor of the measure and 13 against.
India became only the fourth nation in history to send a spacecraft to Mars orbit when the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) . Now, eight years later, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) reports that MOM has gone offline, and it is not expected to come back. It’s sad to see MOM go, but the mission lasted much longer than its expected six to 10-month lifespan. MOM, also known as Mangalyaan, arrived in orbit of Mars in September 2014, less than a year after it . MOM was designed to be a technology demonstration mission, but it was still equipped to do science.
NASA made history last month when it known as Dimorphos. DART, or the Double Asteroid Redirection Test, was the first-ever demonstration of planetary defense technology. With the impact over, scientists around the world have turned their telescopes toward the space rock to survey the aftermath. The latest observations show Dimorphos has grown an enormous comet-like tail of debris. DART was not a particularly large spacecraft. It was about the size of a vending machine; little more than a camera with an ion engine attached. Its goal was simply to collide with Dimorphos, which is a small 170-meter asteroid orbiting a larger space rock called Didymos in a binary system.
(Photo: Sunrise King/Unsplash)Nearly a year following Windows 11’s initial rollout, PC gamers are finally beginning to embrace the new(ish) operating system. According to the most recent Steam Survey, nearly a quarter of PC Steam users are now running Windows 11. Steam’s voluntary hardware and software surveys offer decent visibility into what systems gamers are using during a given month. While the insights from Steam Surveys certainly aren’t perfect—we’ve touched on its and before—they usually capture the gist of what’s becoming popular or falling to the wayside in desktop gaming. The idea is to help Valve and third-party developers evolve existing or future software into something marketable and well-liked.
(Photo: Adam Szuscik/Unsplash)The US Supreme Court has taken on a case that will test the true limitations of Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. The case, Reynaldo Gonzalez et al v. Google, questions whether YouTube can be held responsible for hosting and recommending videos that recruit people into terrorist organizations and incite mass violence. The case focuses on the death of an American woman named Nohemi Gonzalez, who was at a bistro in Paris when ISIS militants initiated a series of deadly . ISIS killed Gonzalez and 19 other diners at the bistro alone; militants in other Paris restaurants, bars, and entertainment venues claimed the lives of an additional 111 people and injured at least 350 that same night.
Google’s fall hardware event is , but everything the company says about the Pixel 7 will be old news. After teasing the device at Google I/O in May 2022, details about the new Pixel phones came out in dribs and drabs over the summer, but a newly leaked spec sheet lays it all out in the open. If Google has any surprises in store, they’ll have to be on the software side. The leak comes by way of an info sheet from a Taiwanese carrier, which was posted to a . It includes specs as well as some key features for both the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro.
(Image: Tesla)When Elon Musk first boasted about Tesla’s upcoming humanoid robot at , details were fairly limited. We knew Optimus’ basic specs (height, weight, carrying capacity, etc.) but little about its internals, and its stated purpose was simply to perform “dangerous, repetitive, boring tasks.” Now we have a bit more information—plus a first look at the real Optimus, versus a 3D model or a guy in a suit. Musk unveiled Optimus at on Friday. “I do want to set some expectations with respect to our Optimus robot,” he said. “As you know, last year was just a person in a robot suit.
